Trial Opens For Man In Wife Slaying

Libertyville Husband Confessed To Crime, Police Say

The murder trial of a Libertyville man who is charged with killing his wife and then setting their home on fire is scheduled to begin Monday morning in Waukegan.

The trial commences about seven months after police said they found James Lantz, 54, standing outside his burning home at 30250 Bell Lane in a bloody T-shirt and smoking a cigarette. Police later found his wife, Francisca, 52, dead inside the home with 25 stab wounds and 41 other cuts over her body.

Police have said that they interviewed Lantz in a Milwaukee hospital where he was being treated for burns and that he admitted to the slaying.

Lantz reportedly had been arguing with his wife about a variety of matters, including financial problems, in the months before her death.

Prosecutors say that at 5:15 a.m. on March 16, Lantz awoke his 23-year-old daughter, Veronica, to tell her that he had just killed her mother. When she tried to call police after seeing her mother bloodied on the floor, Lantz threatened to set the house on fire, police have said.

So Veronica woke her 16-year-old brother, Brian, and the two fled to a neighbor's house to call authorities. The Lantz's other child, 21-year-old Bruce, was away at college.

When police arrived, the kitchen already was engulfed in flames.

Lantz was taken to St. Therese Hospital in Waukegan and then airlifted to Milwaukee for treatment for his burns. He initially indicated that he would attempt to fight extradition to Illinois from Wisconsin, but later decided to return to Lake County with sheriff's police.

In May, a Lake County judge refused to release Lantz on bond from Lake County Jail. Prosecutors have said they will not pursue the death penalty in the case.